San Francisco 49ers Forever

Are the 49ers all of a sudden too lucky for their own good? Are they setting themselves up for a home loss vs an inferior opponent? The Niners get the week off, and add another 0.5 games to their division lead. Braylon Edwards is coming back from his knee injury and practiced today. Moran Norriss is apparently healthy and ready to lose his starting job to Bruce Miller. Tremaine Brock is back in practice, still in a cast, though. The team has had more time to gel and assimilate Jim Harbaugh’s vision of total NFL domination. And their next foe Cleveland, they of their 3-3 record, played what must have been a real barn-burner in Cleveland. A 6-3 shellacking of the Seahawks. So much for Charlie Whitehead being the new savior. NO Whitey indeed.

Speaking of DC, we had a great time. The talk around DC is that Gross Rexman is in full denial mode about his culpability in all the picks he’s thrown this year. He’s been railed in the local press, and he’s shaking it off like a coat of autumn leaves. Shanny however, thinks otherwise. Hence, the benching and the emergence of John Beck. Who, you ask? I have no idea, but we get to play him in 2 weeks. Hightower was lost for the season, and Santana Moss was lost for at least 4 weeks as well.

It is getting to be hard to be pessimistic about these next 2 games. 7-1 heading into the Giants game? Crazy. I don’t foresee any let-down this coming week. Harbaugh has these guys hungry and fully immersed in the ‘us-vs-them’ mentality. I’m double-damn sure he used Handshake-gate to full advantage. Creating the ‘us-vs-them’ strategy is straight from the Bill Walsh coaching handbook.

Depending on how this all plays out, the Niners could face a long coast to the playoffs. What needs to be stressed (and I have no doubt Harbaugh is doing just this) is to create the perception that they need home-field. They need the bye week. They need to establish themselves as Numero Uno. Or Numero Two-o depending on how GB shakes out. Of all the times the Niners have played GB (2x IN GB the last 2 years), THIS would have been a great time to go head-to-head with them. As it is, we may have to wait for the playoffs.

Play nice. I’m gone for the next 4 days. I’ll be baaaack. On Tuesday.

How’s about this? Who do the Niners face in the playoffs. IF they make the playoffs. Do they make it all the way to the 2nd seed and get a bye? Certainly possible seeing as they’ve pretty much played the toughest part of their schedule. Unless they lose their QB and a few LBs and corners, it looks as if the NFC West is in the bag. Balt on the road is the hardest game out there. Pittsburgh has looked emminently beatable. Esp at home. The Giants? I don’t know.  Washington? The Niners should be able to get past them. Jeff Beck? He’s going down. Down down down down down. Who the hell is John Beck? Better than Gross Rexman? Really? The rest of the West? 5-1 should be doable. So, say they lose to the Giants, Pitts, and drop a division game. That’s 12-4. The NFC East and NFC South have too many competitive teams, and will beat each other up and end up 11-5. 1st round bye.

Could I have imagined this 6 weeks ago? No. I had them squeaking into the playoffs at 8-8.

Re-undead Al Davis must be running the Oakland Raiders from beyond the mortal coil. He’s pulling strings from the depths of hell, as the trade for Carson Palmer is right up his alley. Signing Carson Palmer, the big-armed bomb-slinging QB is straight out of the Darryl Lamonica mold. Unfortunately, the Raiders are a running team these days. Behind Darren McFadden, one of the many fast small guys that un-undead Al drafted with regularity, the Raiders are churning up large chucks of yardage on the ground. Campbell certainly wasn’t putting up huge numbers, but he was running the team pretty efficiently.

However, The confluence of Campbell’s injury, Cincinnati’s 4-2 record behind the read-headed step-child Raqggedy Andy Dalton, and the Raiders wanting to get rid of their draft picks for the next 3 years convinced Mike Brown to trade the ‘retired’ Palmer for at least the Raiders 1st round pick in 2012, and possibly (if they make the AFC Championship game) their 2013 1st round pick. It is at worst their 2nd round 2013 pick.

This is quite a price to pay for a guy that has missed camp, and not played a game since the 1st week of 2010. The Raiders are going to start him this weekend vs the 2-3 Chiefs. He is rusty at best. His numbers the past few seasons (19th in QBR last year, 16th the year before, 2008 he was injured, 2007 he was 14th) are pedestrian. And, with the state of that offensive line, he may be under the gun early and often. Too many hits, and he’ll be alongside Campbell on the sidelines. Maybe getting back with Hue Jackson (his QB coach at USC, and WR coach at Cincy) will get him back on beam. If anything, the Palmer trade mercifully gets the Handshake out of the ESPN bullshit news rotation.

And, just in case you are feeling too giddy about the Niners fast start, here’s Ray Ratto’s take on the 49ers:

http://tinyurl.com/5ugnw5w

If I didn’t know better I’d say he’s channeling flying V. What a tool.

But, the good news is, I’m going to Washington DC with my son for a little bit of Americana tourist fun, so it was either pick the bye week, or try to get tickets to the Skins game in DC in mid-November. We opted for the bye week. I haven’t been to DC since 1973, so it should be fun.

Anyhow, back to football, it looks like the Niners aren’t going to do anything before the traade deadline in 5 minutes. Going for Brandon Lloyd, who ended up costing the Rams a conditional pick (6th round?) in 2012, would have been cheap, but they didn’t. He had a fair-to-middling career here, making some spectacular catches and dropping some easy ones, but they do have Braylon Edwards coming back from his knee injury for the Cleveland game.  Last I heard anyway.

Speaking of WRs and such, hopefully Edwards’ return will spark the return of the deep passing game. The Niners have not thrown a lot of deep balls, but have ratcheted up the mid-range game. This is necessary to stretch the defenses and to open up running lanes. But atill and all, we need to at least show that we can try it. Williams is fast. He should be good for a couple deep sideline passes.We’ll never become the 1984 Miami Dolphinis, but they need to show it at least a couple times a game. Brett Swain is fast as well. Get all the speed guys in for a few plays a game.

Speaking of bye week, I wonder what new wrinkles they will come up with. Maybe it is the deep game.

Wow. Unbelievably tough, gritty, smashmouth performance by the resurgent and real San Francisco 49ers. The 2 biggest weapons out of Deeetroit were rendered null and void. Or at least contained. Ndamukong Suh had 2 tackles, and was not a factor all day. His talk of planting our QB into the ground was prescient in the fact that HIS QB was the one sacked 5 times (Smith twice).  Mergatroid had a good game (7 for 113), but was kept out of the end zone, and was not the giant factor he was supposedly going to be. The thing about it, is both were played straight up a lot of the time. Anthony Davis had a spectacular game blocking Suh, and Chris Culliver had CJ one-on-one much of the time.

Offensively, we are in uncharted territory. Alex Smith has led his 3rd 4th quarter comeback on the road this season. Something that hasn’t been seen since (wait for it) the Joe Montana days of 1987. Smith’s numbers weren’t gaudy or spectacular, but he led the team on a 4th quarter drive to seal the deal, hitting Delanie Walker on a 4th and 6 slant for the go-ahead score with 1:51 remaining. Crabs had 9 catches for 77 yards to pick up for Joshua Morgan. Gore slashed and sliced his way for 141 yards, including 2 big chunks of 60 and 44 yards to set up 2 scores. Kudos go to Bruce Miller for keying both runs with key inside blocks. VERY Rathman-esque. That being said, the offense was far from perfect. M0st of the 15 penalties were called on them, with a bunch of false starts, holding calls, and a few illegal formations scattered in there. Crabs made a bone head play when he tried to score after a catch in the 1 yard line was ruled incomplete because he didn’t get his right foot down (2 lefts do NOT equal a left and right). The next play, Delanie Walker dropped a TD pass all alone on the sideline. The Niners also lost the turnover battle. Staley whiffed on the first offensive play, leaving Smith dead to rights on a hit by Kyle Vanden Bosch. The play resulted in a sack/strip (and a FG). Alex also sailed a pass early in the 4th quarter to kill a promising drive.

Enough cannot be said about the defense. Deeetroit’s run game never go going. Stafford was hassled all day. There were 10 hits on him to go along with the 5 sacks. Stafford was forced to check down most of the day as the big weapons of CJ and Pettigrew had their catches, but Deetroit had a hard time sustaining drives due to the D line stopping the run and getting constant pressure. Brooks came clean on a blitz to kill a drive, Aldon Smith had a tackle in the end zone for a safety plus another sack, and  Justin Smith was relentless as well. The secondary gave up yards but no home runs as Deetroit did have some success underneath. The D line has to be considered among the top 2 or 3 in the league.

Heady days, indeed. Harbaugh has seemingly made all the right calls in keeping Tomsula, Rathman, and Solari, while replacing the rest of the coaching staff. Their faith in Old McDonald (and jettisoning AF and Clements among others) has paid huge dividends. The biggest call is putting his eggs in the battered, maligned, and seemingly irreparably damaged basket that is Alex Smith. No one (OK, Twin, you get yours) foresaw the change in his game that has resulted in a huge drop in picks, and a much greater understanding of his offense. Lots of people have bemoaned the fact that he’s had too many OC’s, not real offensive-minded head coach, and all that, but I saw this as a placeholder season for Smith. As it is now, Smith likely gets another contract this year from the 49ers. And rightly so.

Shit, take a look at Baalke’s draft. His first without Singletary. 4 guys in the draft played significant roles in the win yesterday in A Smith, Culliver, Hunter, and Miller. I figured they’d be better this year, just not this good this fast.

Lots of differeing opinions about this Deetroit game. From we’ll get slaughtered, to a tough loss, to a victory. 5-0 Deetroit vs the 4-1 Niners. There are a lot of people out there that don’t believe in either team as being more than flashes in the pan. The winner will be the toast of the NFL. For a week, anyway. I happen to think the 49ers can get on these guys early as the Lions struggle to get going, as they usually do. The onus will be for the 49ers to keep the chains moving once a lead is established. If it is. Harbaugh showed what he could do last week by going aggressive early. The thing was, it was done with a lot of 2 TE/2 WR formations (and even a bunch of 3 TE formations), not the 4 WR sets I had been calling for (and expecting).

The nice thing about all this? Well, I dug the fact that the 2nd TD to VD came on one of the 3 TE sets. One the Niners had run out of the previous 4 times. Down and distance, or formation doesn’t dictate the play being called anymore. Harbaugh had TB completely off-balance the whole day. And TB’s defense isn’t taken lightly. My thought (OK, hope) is they can continue this style of play. I’d actually like to see more multi-WR sets. Get Swain in there. And run up the middle. Throw screens and delays. I think the Niners can use their aggressiveness against them. Should be a good game either way.

Is it me? Why am I not very worried about Detroit? Suh is a beast, and Mergatroid is outstanding. After that? Ehhhh . . .  Frankly, I think the Niners can win this game. Not easy, by any means, but something in the area of 28-17. Some shit like that. Stafford, among all his slow starts and comebacks, is fairly inconsistent. Detroit’s running game doesn’t worry me that much, and they haven’t exactly played a boatload of stellar opponents, either. Chicago was their toughest foe, and among all that ineptitude on the Bears’ part, Chicago was in it most of the way. Lost in Detroit’s win were a shitload of penalties called on them, a lot of missed passes, and the home run to Mergs.

Detroit may get another big play out of him, but the key is to take advantage of all the other opportunities they seem to offer up. They are going to pass a lot, so I’m thinking the Niners will play a lot of nickel and also have Aldon Smith in while they primarily run a 4-3 defense. This puts the onus on the linebackers to watch for screens and delays. That being said, Bowman and Willis are both in the top 7 in tackles, and they are doing a great job of staying at home and not overpursuing plays. A vast difference from last year. How they rotate these guys around as they go from 3-4 to 4-3 will be something to watch. The secondary has made geat strides, even from the start of the year. As many yards as the Eagles gained in the air, the DBs were making plays downfield. And they were tackling guys after catches. The TB game was a study in tight coverage.

The Niners defense is gaining a reputation as a tough, hard-hitting unit. Laying the bricks on Mergatroid may slow him down a hair. I thnk they should jam CJ early and often. Culliver has good size to match up with him on the line. Jam him with help over the top, and they can minimize his impact. I have the same feeling about this game as I did about the Tampa Bay game. They are both good, but I think we out-play and out-coach them.  God, what a weird feeling. It has been too long.

The City that Ford built, The Motor City, Motown, Hockeytown, The Murder City, the City that Civilization Forgot, Terrible Ted’s stomping grounds. Paris of the Midwest? Right. In the 1920s. Anyhow, the Niners make their second appeaerance at Ford Field since it opened in 2002. I guess you throw the recent record out, as the Niners have owned these guys for years now. Going all the way back to the 1983 playoffs where Eddie Murray missed a 43 yard FG as time ran out to give the 49ers the victory. A good friend of mine got married that day, and it was funny watching the dance floor empty out as everyone crowded around a TV somewhere in the house as Montana drove for the go-ahead score, and the Lions got into position to kick the FG.

Anyhow, is anyone really afraid of Deetroit? Yeah, they are 5-0. But the inept Bears had the lead on them at the half. This after 12 false starts in the first 3 drives. they’ve come back from some deficits, but they said the same thing about Tampa Bay. Suh is a beast, but one guy can be neutralized. Fairley looked average as the NT. Mergatroid is good as well, but double him, jam his ass at the line, and you can negate some of his impact as well. The toughest thing will be the crowd noise. They key? Like Tampa, get on top of them early. Take the crowd out of it. Stafford missed a bunch of passes throughout the whole game, and with another slow start, the Niners can get on top and pound the run late. Get some more playing time for Cappy.

West Coast Killers indeed. Tampa Bay learned the hard way that this isn’t last year’s 49ers, last year’s coaching staff, or last year’s Alex Smith. The 49ers put a beat-down on the slow-starting (and slow finishing) Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the tune of 48-3. The largest margin of victory since the heady days of Bill Walsh (and Super Bowl XXIX). The 49ers, if they beat Deetroit next week, would BECOME the West Coast Killers. A suddenly a very legit powerhouse in the NFC.  Hard to believe the speed at which they have assimilated the new offense of Harbaugh/Roman, and Vic Fangio’s newly aggressive defense. I guess Joe Staley was right when he said the O line doesn’t suck. The line pitched a shutout in protecting Alex, and opened up the tough TB D line for 211 (125 for Gore, and Hunter had some nice runs and 65 yards of his own late) yards rushing, and 205 passing.

The game yesterday was a thorough and complete beat-down of a tough NFC South team in the Bucs. One thing I like is the team has never taken the opening kickoff. They either defer, or the other team wins the toss. It seems to set the tone when they stop the opening drive. Especially when they can back it up with a TD. The Niners forced a 3-and-out, and scored in 4 plays to set the tone. The 2nd drive was stalled by the Gore fumble, but instantly erased by the Rogers pick 6. And the rout was on. Alex Smith now has the 3rd best QBR in the league at 104.1. His numbers weren’t huge, but they certainly didn’t need to be as the Niners threw for 205 and ran for 211. That’s balance. The big numbers in this game? 127.2 rating, 3 TDs, 0 picks. More importantly, he led the team on successful drive after successful drive.

The defense has suddenly become a ball-hawking (Nate who?) secondary that has 8 picks in 5 games. The D line has 12 sacks (including 2 by Aldon Smith yesterday) without blitzing very much. They confused and baffled Josh Freeman all day, and stuffed LeGarrette Blount to the tune of 38 yards.  This was a statement game that I was fairly sure the Niners would come out aggressive, and not buy in to the grind-it-out style that everyone seemed to think it was going to be. These guys came out throwing (mainly in 2 WR/2TE sets), so there was little of the spread formations that were used the last couple weeks. Althogh Walker did line up in the slot for some big plays, includiong the opening drive TD that Smith put in there perfectly. They even used a bunch of 3 TE sets that resulted in some decent runs, and they threw once out of that formation for a 12 yard gain.

The great thing to see is that, with all the different formations and sets the Niners are running, there is a ton of shit for other teams to try and figure out. Passing out of 3 TE formations, running out of the spread, and being aggressive with the offense has been the biggest sea-change for this team. Harbaugh has fully sold this team on his strategies, and philosophy. I really didn’t think it would happen this fast.

Big game fro the 49ers. Pitfall game, progress game, all that noise. Truly a GPS game, to coin a phrase. Apparently Philly is in a irreversible death spiral. They are down 31-24 in the 4th quarter. Unless they pull it out, they’ll be 1-4. Crazy. Da Raiders are trying to beat a tough Houson team on the road. Pittsburgh is wakng up from their malaise. Indy’s fighting for its first win. Gotta love the NFL.

The situation is what it has been. Keep Alex protected, and run block to the 2nd level. Get pressure with the front 7. RJF has some shoes to fill today. Frankly, I really didn’t think Soap was going to do as well as he has. I’m sure theyy’ll keep up the rotations on the D line to keep everyone fresh with D Dobbs and Ian Williams.

Hopefully the fans in attendance will be predominantly 49er fans today.